Read Ready

I've made it through all five books in this year's Georgian Bay Reads competition, and I think this year's field is the most impressive yet.

If you're not familiar with it, Georgian Bay Reads has each library in our area choose a Canadian novel they think we should all curl up with this fall. The five 'defenders', one from each library, will argue the relative merits of each novel, and after several rounds of good-natured scrapping and voting, we'll have a winner.

I suspect my own selection has given some of the other 'defenders' some pause.
Fall on Your Knees was the first novel by Anne-Marie MacDonald. Previously, she had been a playwright. It's long, it's gritty and the subject matter ranges from racism to homophobia to incest mixed in with accidental murder of babies, some teenage prostitution and some gruesome accounts of the madness of The Great War thrown in there. In the end, it's the story of survival after pride leads to a big fall. It's not for the faint of heart, but it's very, very well written. The way MacDonald describes what it takes for a person to return from war is the first time I feel I have a true, albeit small glimmer of understanding of what a soldier copes with when they return to 'real' life.

My dark choice is up against some much lighter-hearted fare: Farley Mowat's young-adult classic, Lost in the Barrens, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, Marilyn Simonds' The Holding, and Dorris Heffron's City Wolves.

In their own way, each is a survival story.

I just hope to survive past the first or second round.

Georgian Bay Reads is on Saturday night at the Collingwood Library at 7 p.m. It's free to attend, and I sure could use your support.